#tsobg

[anxiousmoodlet]

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔖𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔶 𝔬𝔣 𝔅𝔯𝔦𝔞𝔯 𝔊𝔯𝔬𝔳𝔢 — Chicken coops, flower meadows and bloodied hands…

[anxiousmoodlet]

Briar Grove is a daughter of the peasantry. Her home is dirty, her chickens are malnourished, and her garden never survives long in to the autumn. Alone in the world, though not by any unusual means. In Larchwood it is quite normal for mothers to be lost on their birthing beds, and for fathers to never return home from battle. Before his death, Briar’s father had taught her how to till the earth and how to skin a rabbit (he had even found her books so that she might one day learn how to read), and for that she counted herself amongst the lucky ones.

The Kingdom of Larchwood is built on river country, where farming is competitive and swamp magic is much more than a children’s bedtime story. A sloping landscape of lush woodlands and grassy plains make up much of the map, marred only by boggy fens that thrive and fester where the valleys dip. Merchants travel the roads in those fens with fearful haste, and royal visits there are unheard of. Places of poverty and strife, coined ‘the Mire’ by those who can afford to look down upon it.  

Sundown comes early in the Mire, the yellow-orange light of twilight swallowed greedily by whomping canopies of great oak and brittle ash. Whilst the plains towns and merchant cities of the kingdom revel long in to golden evenings, swamp-dwellers like Briar stumble through humid night. Despite themselves however, the people of the Mire keep a quaint community. They are humble and bony, their colours greying and spines wilted, but that is all they know.

And this is where our story begins, amidst villages of people who are simply as happy as they can be.

[anxiousmoodlet]

Briar snuck around the blacksmith, avoiding the boarded windows of the general store that made up its front. Too many times had Mr. Fullers caught her sneaking in to see his son. The sound of metal-on-metal echoed against the stone walls, and the forge heaved and gasped in the corner of the room.

March likely heard the willowy young woman push the door open, but he didn’t look up from his work.

Briar: March, please tell me you’re nearly done with that.

[anxiousmoodlet]

Briar sets the book in her lap proper, and shifts her gaze to stare out of the cracked, stained glass window. Bracing herself for a scolding. This wasn’t the first time Father Gules had caught her out in the chapel, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Gules: This is not a library, Miss Briar. It is a place of worship.

Briar: I’m reading scripture, aren’t I? Ain’t that worship enough?

Gules: I’ve told you before, that isn’t how it works. Now, come along — if you’re not going to pray, out with you.

Briar: Can I take this with me? Please?

[anxiousmoodlet]

Briar spends much of her time at the village market. There is only really a thrown-together tavern, a barely functioning blacksmith, and a pockmarked chapel there, but it is the hub of the Mire’s lowly community. When she isn’t working her crops, Briar dons a nurse’s scrubs and helps tend the sickly there, and when she isn’t doing that… you can find her tucked away on a pew, reading. 

Or, more accurately, trying. Being able to read is a skill reserved for priests and doctors in the marshlands, and those types of people rarely have the time to teach simple girls simpler grammar. But she is devoted. Perhaps fittingly, or offensively (depending on who you asked), she takes that devotion to the chapel: The only place in the Mire that she can reliably find a book. 

Most of those books are thick, old tomes, with long words and scrawled writing, but not a soul could fault her for trying.

[anxiousmoodlet]

Briar: “He then muhs— ter— ed, mustered. He then mustered three hun— three hundred th— thoo— thoo-ou— sand... three hundred thoo-ou-sand men.” By the Great Berry, thousand? Why is it spelled like that? 

Behind Briar, the chapel door creaks. The warmth of the afternoon sun moves across her back, and footsteps approach her pew. She pretends not to notice.

Briar: “He then must— ered three hundred thousand men fit for muh— ill— i — tary, military...  ser— vick— ee.” Ser-vick-ee? Ser— 

[anxiousmoodlet]

Gules: No, Miss Briar, you may not. If you need something new to read, you can purchase a book from the market, like everyone else.

Briar lifts her hands in frustration, gesturing to the generous collection of tomes littering the chapel. Books were expensive in this neck of the marshlands, and Father Gules hoarded his collection like a dragon.  

Briar: “Like everyone else”? You know damn well there ain’t nobody buying books for their leisure in the Mire, Father. I can’t afford books, I just want—

Gules: What? You just want what, Miss Briar? To be able to read? Why? You’re a farmer’s daughter, born and bred of the marshlands, you don’t need to be able to read. 

[anxiousmoodlet]

?: Service, Miss Briar. It says service.

The footsteps come to a halt, and with their quiet, comes a voice. A steady voice, with not a drop of the sun’s warmth in it. Briar lowers her book slowly, and frowns at the pages.